"D" students

jumali · January 3, 2008, 2:03pm

my cousin just asked me and i have no viable answer and it just occurred to me, but do powerhouses (ivy leagues, top 10 schools in the nation) accept “D” students because what if they improve their grades in the Mid-Year Report?

kyledavid80 · January 3, 2008, 2:12pm

Midyear reports don’t usually count for that much. They would need to see a trend over the high school years. And even then, those with upward trends aren’t quite as impressive as those who have maintained excellence all along.

But yes, some “D” students do get in. I think they tend to be special cases – for example, development cases, perhaps recruited athletes with real promise, etc. Search collegeboard.com for a school and look at the % students in each GPA range; many have students in the 1- or 2-point range.

Metallica2289 · January 3, 2008, 2:13pm

lol, no. I could understand B students, but D is too far from getting into a top school.

Gryffon5147 · January 13, 2008, 5:32pm

I hardly expect ‘D’ students to get into upper UCs, let alone top 10 schools.

kyledavid80 · January 13, 2008, 8:26pm

1) Berkeley is very often put in the top 10.
2) Publics emphasize GPA more than privates.

Let’s see the GPA stats:

Stanford:
* 94% had h.s. GPA of 3.75 and higher
* 4% had h.s. GPA between 3.5 and 3.74
* 1% had h.s. GPA between 3.25 and 3.49
* 1% had h.s. GPA between 3.0 and 3.24

Dartmouth
* 62% had h.s. GPA of 3.75 and higher
* 18% had h.s. GPA between 3.5 and 3.74
* 10% had h.s. GPA between 3.25 and 3.49
* 6% had h.s. GPA between 3.0 and 3.24
* 2% had h.s. GPA between 2.5 and 2.99
* 1% had h.s. GPA between 2.0 and 2.49
* 1% had h.s. GPA between 1.0 and 1.99

Princeton
* 78% had h.s. GPA of 3.75 and higher
* 13% had h.s. GPA between 3.5 and 3.74
* 6% had h.s. GPA between 3.25 and 3.49
* 3% had h.s. GPA between 3.0 and 3.24

Narcissa · January 14, 2008, 12:40am

1/100??? what haha. those are straight D’s

Kowloon · January 14, 2008, 2:28pm

wow. those MUST’ve been developmental admits

FredFredBurger · January 17, 2008, 3:43pm

Sorry, Berkeley isn’t top 10. Maybe top 25.

kyledavid80 · January 17, 2008, 4:34pm

It’s top 10 for the majority of rankings out there, not to mention most college presidents’ opinions. (Berkeley’s peer score is a 4.8, tied with Yale, and only .1 behind Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, and MIT.)

It may be your opinion–and others on this board, perhaps–that Berkeley isn’t top-10, but in my opinion it is (and I’d say it’s a rather informed one). To each his own.

FredFredBurger · January 17, 2008, 4:48pm

Maybe for grad school but not undergrad. But again to each his own.

kyledavid80 · January 17, 2008, 4:52pm

That’s the conventional wisdom here on CC, which is largely driven by US news rankings. Berkeley’s undergrad is superb, easily one of the best – hell, even the ex-president of Stanford considers Berkeley’s undergrad to be top-10.

pearlygate · January 17, 2008, 9:23pm

@kyledavid80

just curious what’s your top10 schools would be?

@OP
provided some people with 3.20 managed to get into ivies I assume a single D will not rule out your cousin’s chance to get into ivies.

MorsVenit · January 17, 2008, 10:59pm

See this interesting post on peer assessment scores:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/412606-how-calculate-universities-peer-assessment-score.html?highlight=predict+peer+assessment[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/412606-how-calculate-universities-peer-assessment-score.html?highlight=predict+peer+assessment</a>

See posts #1 and #9.

Edit:

If I’m remembering the same letter, then you’ve changed the words around a little. As I remember, he said there’s an argument for Berkeley being in the top ten or so (which there certainly is). But, as I’m sure most would agree, there’s also an argument for HYPSMC, Columbia, Brown, Penn, Chicago, Northwestern, Duke, Dartmouth, Rice, Emory, WashU, and JHU for being ranked up there, too. I agree that Berkeley can be a great place for undergrads, but I disagree with your absolutism in insisting Berkeley is “top-10” for undergrads.

Edit #2:
Why do all threads in the Stanford forum seem to turn in to Berkeley discussions after you post?

kyledavid80 · January 17, 2008, 11:10pm

^^ his study defeats the point of a peer assessment score – it’s basically just a replication of US News. It has questionable factors such as few NRC rankings taken into account, financial rank, etc. And some of the conclusions are rather ridiculous – UVA and UCLA > Chicago? That’s definitely not how the peers view them. And UCSF shouldn’t be in there if this is peer assessment of undergrad.

Everyone knows Berkeley’s academic caliber, which is probably why its peers–including Stanford–rate it as highly as they do.

I tend not to rank schools precisely, but put them into tiers.

kyledavid80 · January 19, 2008, 2:59pm

He said this:

Take from that what you will. (The distancing of “one could” suggests he thinks it himself. Not that this point even really matters.)

Absolutism? As I said above, I tend not to rank precisely, though I’d say “top-10” since that’s the mentality that plagues CC. Instead, I would put Berkeley–along with many of the other top universities–in a “top tier” indicative of the quality that US News says rests only in its top 10.

No, I am not saying that Berkeley is better than many other schools such as Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, Northwestern, etc. for undergrad.

Er, re-read the original post – the OP was the one who brought it into the discussion (“I hardly expect ‘D’ students to get into upper UCs, let alone top 10 schools”).

(A few threads where Berkeley is discussed, and you say “all threads”? Not to mention that Berkeley pops up in tons of threads, given its proximity, comparability, and in turn rivalry to Stanford. And of course, many other schools come under discussion here in the Stanford forum.)

SupermanPQ · January 20, 2008, 3:27pm

No need to get defensive, KyleDavid. We all know Berkeley is a top school, but that it is a public school would not permit it to be compared to the top-ten schools–which are mostly private schools–on equal ground. For undergrad anyway, the educational experience is not the best–this, btw, is from only hearsay and personal accounts. 
It caters to California students, which means it must accept lower-scorers than the superstars in other states. It is often very crowded with regard to class size, and this diminishes the quality of the teaching. 
I mean it is a great institution and I would be proud to be a Cal student, but as far as US News and Reports undergrad rankings, I believe Cal is where it should be. Now Graduate studies are a different matter.

kyledavid80 · January 20, 2008, 4:05pm

That isn’t a reason. You want to let the data show something about the school, not assume that by definition publics aren’t as good. Cambridge University and Oxford University are both publics. And they’re generally in the top 10 (often with Harvard, etc.). Same goes for Berkeley.

Again that’s conventional wisdom. And it’s clearly not true.

The “lower-scorers” still score high regardless. The superstars tend to be the ones who get into Berkeley OOS.

That’s a stereotype. Only about 5% of its courses have more than 100 (I think Stanford’s is 4%). Every large class (usually those over 50) is supplemented with small discussions, usually <20.

No, it doesn’t. I used to think that too. But when I investigated it, I saw it was far from true. For one, the only time there’s a large class is in a lecture. The lecture is just the professor teaching the material. You don’t ask questions. You don’t discuss. It’s a lecture; this is how it works at Stanford, Yale, etc. So, does it matter whether there are more people listening to the lecture? No. The professor will still teach; his/her abilities with teaching aren’t hindered by the fact that there are more people. The small discussions are where you ask questions, converse, interact – and Berkeley, as well as Stanford, ensures that there are small discussions to supplement any large lecture (though the majority of lectures aren’t large). You also usually meet with your discussion group more times per week than your lecture class.

I believe it should be higher. And in fact, most rankings seem to agree with me.

The US News ranking is obviously biased toward private schools – faculty resources, alumni giving, etc. Berkeley’s ranked graduation rank is 25, even though its grad rate is the same as schools like Chicago, WUStL, Vanderbilt, etc. and higher than schools like Emory. The reported student:faculty ratio for Stanford and Berkeley uses different methods for each (Stanford includes total faculty and only undergraduate students; Berkeley uses total faculty and undergrad+grad students). Berkeley doesn’t superscore the SAT, while privates do. Look at MIT’s class sizes: 61% under 20; 14% over 50. Berkeley’s? 61% under 20; 14% over 50. For more discussion on the private-school bias, see this:

<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/383429-review-usnwr-approach-what-valuable.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/383429-review-usnwr-approach-what-valuable.html</a>

I don’t mean to be defensive (nor do I think I am) – but I dislike it when students keep certain misconceptions (or rumors) alive.

"D" students

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